gender discrimination, gender construction and battered women who kill
- Categories
- Article/Artikel
- Magazine Title
- Feminist Legal Studies
- Magazine Year
- 1995
- Magazine Number
- 2
- Creator
- Nicolson, Donald
- Thesaurus
- strafrecht, huiselijk geweld, seksisme, criminaliteit, mishandeling, psychische stoornissen
- Description
- This article examines how gender construction operated in the recent cases of Sara Thornton and Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Their impact on the availability of criminal law defences to battered women who kill has already been thoroughly analysed. Equally significant, however, is the way in which the Court of Appeal constructed each woman and the story behind their killings so as to justify the disposal of their appeals. The cases also illustrate the complex relationship between gender construction and gender discrimination: how discrimination may flow from and reinforce gender constructions: and how the eradication of gender neutral bias may be replaced by a subtle process of gender construction in which female experiences and differences are considered, but in the form of sexist stereotypes which reinforce the oppression and control of women in general.